TFA: "The trial is weighted against you. If the police officer says it's calibrated properly, then that's enough preponderance of the evidence for the judge. He didn't show me any evidence it was calibrated correctly," says Williams."

No, the countless certification and testing procedures are weighted against you. Governments spend a LOT of money ensuring a super low error rate for speed cameras and they're tested regularly for compliance. The judge knows this. Unless you have evidence otherwise you're not going to win your case. If you were serious about thinking you had a chance to beat the ticket on these grounds then you would have done your research and put in a GIPA/FOI request for test/compliance data on the camera in question.

Here's a far easier way to avoid the ticket and time you've wasted of the court system: Don't farking speed, and if you do and get caught out, cop it on the chin and stfu.

No non-corrupt cop is going to pull you over for 27 in a 25 unless you're begging for it. The system was not designed for "yes you were speeding, no you were not" binary enforcement. Taking the humans out of the loop has made it crazy.

Bankrupt. Broke as a joke, and they just got these lovely new cruisers. Challengers and chargers. In an area where the speed limit is 25 or 15 everywhere. Automated plate readers too. They just sit there and pull people over for any and everything. They pulled me over one night for having a suspended license. I didn't KNOW I had a suspended license, but they were more than happy to help me figure out the state paperwork error that caused their system to flag me as suspended. More than happy to help. In court. Over 6 months, stretched out as long as they could, with $400 in court fees attached.

Court meets in a VERY hot little room with few seats, in the back of the municipal building with no parking, at 5:30 PM. If you are contesting a ticket it will take at least 3 visits. Due to the INSANE number of cases, traffic tickets are usually gotten to around 7 to 7:30 PM. You will not be admitted if you arrive late, even if you are last on the docket.

No translators available. No children allowed.

Yeah, they've got it figured out. Make it impossible or as uncomfortable as possible to use the system as you have the rights to. Get everyone to plea out, take a "No points" offense with a $200 fine and $200 court costs. It gets you in and out in 30 minutes.

I hope they lose EVERY DIME they have made in that shiat town on the lawsuits that are coming down on them.

Shadow Blasko:No non-corrupt cop is going to pull you over for 27 in a 25 unless you're begging for it. The system was not designed for "yes you were speeding, no you were not" binary enforcement. Taking the humans out of the loop has made it crazy.

But it is that binary. People seem to think it's not and that's where you start hearing bleating from the sidelines about "cameras are nothing more than revenue machines, screwing us all over", etc. Just as it's binary that a cop can exercise discretion - will book you, won't book you. 0 or 1.

Legislation gives authority to bureaucrats to create a clear line in the sand. That line is in the form of a speed limit. Many systems exist that allow the bureaucrat to create this limit - road condition testing, fatality statistics, etc etc etc. Once that line is created the only choice that exists is whether you cross that line or not. There's no leeway outside of that. The cameras are nothing more than a tool to catch you as you cross that line.Cameras exist, will always exist and will always pick people up for crossing that line.

That aside, I'm not arguing that cameras can be wrong or don't have problems. No system is perfect. The story you've linked is a prime example of where the system has been questioned and a question of error was backed up with evidence.

Personally, i farking hate cameras. I can't see how 1-2 kph over the limit is worth the efforts of a ticket, but meh. As someone who spends 99% of road time on a sportsbike i often test the boundaries. And when get caught ill take it like a man.

Snotnose:Got one of these a year ago, found a lawyer who charges $100 and if she can't get the ticket dismissed you get a full refund. She got it dismissed.

Here in San Diego those tix are close to $500 ($483 if I remember correctly).

Stories like these makes me miss the small town I learned to drive in. They couldn't pull you over for less than 10 over and if you did get caught going faster, the ticket was always $38 and two points.

snuff3r:The cameras are nothing more than a tool to catch you as you cross that line.Cameras exist, will always exist and will always pick people up for crossing that line.

I just see it as a money grab personally because of how it is administered and enforced.

If you're speeding, you get a ticket. In Elmwood, you get a fine. It's no points on your license, and its 2 or 3x what the ticket would cost if you were actually pulled over by a cop. It costs money above that if you wish to question it.

The money brought in, unlike with a regular ticket, is shared between Elmwood and the company in Maryland that administers the cameras. The state doesn't get a cut, nor does the county.

No non-corrupt cop is going to pull you over for 27 in a 25 unless you're begging for it. The system was not designed for "yes you were speeding, no you were not" binary enforcement. Taking the humans out of the loop has made it crazy.

Of course in America you're uniquely farked because we've managed to screw up both our law enforcement systems and our judicial systems.

30 seconds and a gas powered angle grinder, but (and get this) these units allegedly have vibration detectors which start video and audio recording (transmitted wirelessly), and send out a distress call if the levels are breached.

Shadow Blasko:30 seconds and a gas powered angle grinder, but (and get this) these units allegedly have vibration detectors which start video and audio recording (transmitted wirelessly), and send out a distress call if the levels are breached.

The ones here have smoke detectors and heat detectors. Some of the ones in the UK now stream a video feed of the other cameras back someplace else because they get broken so often.

If you don't like speed cameras, remind your local homeless population that there are often $6,000 cameras in them.

jaylectricity:snuff3r: Here's a far easier way to avoid the ticket and time you've wasted of the court system: Don't farking speed, and if you do and get caught out, cop it on the chin and stfu.

Or let's get real about the speed limits. Go five mph below the limit so that when your car accidentally goes a little faster you are still under the limit.

People assume that if the limit is 40 you should drive 40. That's just not true. The absolute limit is 40, you should drive at 35 and if you go down a hill and it creeps up to 39 you're still safe.

Be careful about what you ask for. Victoria Australia has a 3% tolerance and now has the best speed limit compliance in the world. The increased congestion and tail gaiting has wiped out all the advantages of fewer people on the roads and safer cars.

In Germany they need both the license plate and a picture of the driver to give an automated ticket. The computer automatically blurs out the passengers as a privacy matter. Some genius has a British Audi in Germany and thus the driver gets blurred out instead of the passenger. So the German police got a bunch of picture like the following:

DON.MAC:jaylectricity: snuff3r: Here's a far easier way to avoid the ticket and time you've wasted of the court system: Don't farking speed, and if you do and get caught out, cop it on the chin and stfu.

Or let's get real about the speed limits. Go five mph below the limit so that when your car accidentally goes a little faster you are still under the limit.

People assume that if the limit is 40 you should drive 40. That's just not true. The absolute limit is 40, you should drive at 35 and if you go down a hill and it creeps up to 39 you're still safe.

Be careful about what you ask for. Victoria Australia has a 3% tolerance and now has the best speed limit compliance in the world. The increased congestion and tail gaiting has wiped out all the advantages of fewer people on the roads and safer cars.

I don't see the problem.

Let's say you're going down a road and the limit is 45 mph. Nowadays cops will forgive you if you're going 49. Some will forgive you if you're going 52.

Let's just raise the speed limit to 53 and enforce it at absolute strictness. If you are going 54 you are going to jail.

In Germany they need both the license plate and a picture of the driver to give an automated ticket. The computer automatically blurs out the passengers as a privacy matter. Some genius has a British Audi in Germany and thus the driver gets blurred out instead of the passenger. So the German police got a bunch of picture like the following:

Shadow Blasko:They pulled me over one night for having a suspended license. I didn't KNOW I had a suspended license, but they were more than happy to help me figure out the state paperwork error that caused their system to flag me as suspended. More than happy to help. In court. Over 6 months, stretched out as long as they could, with $400 in court fees attached.

You're the first person, other than me, that I know of who has had their license suspended due to an error. Although I had it happen twice* on two different occasions for two completely different reasons. I went to court both times and, other than regular license fees, I had no trouble getting things taken care of. I'm sorry to hear that it took you so long and cost so much.

* the first was because I had received a ticket from a state trooper. The state trooper's computer let the MVD know about the ticket, but didn't pass on the information that I had paid the fine. The second happened when I had had my license suspended for valid reasons. When I took care of the issues and had my license reinstated I went to the MVD to get a new license. Some clerk somewhere hit "suspended" instead of "reinstated" or at least something like that. So, my driving privileges were suspended the day I had them reinstated.

Philbb:You're the first person, other than me, that I know of who has had their license suspended due to an error. Although I had it happen twice* on two different occasions for two completely different reasons. I went to court both times and, other than regular license fees, I had no trouble getting things taken care of. I'm sorry to hear that it took you so long and cost so much.

It has actually happened to me twice.

First one was for the one and only speeding ticket I have had in 15 years. I contested it, the officer rescheduled twice on the hearing, and on the third reschedule I was out of town, so I just went ahead and went into the clerks office and paid the ticket on the due date.

A "failure to appear" bench warrant/suspension was issued before the payment posted to the state accounting department, and my license was revoked, then put into Ohio's new "Revoked/failure to reinstate" status.

18 months later I was pulled over when a state trooper who ran my plates and the RO came back as "Revoked/Failure to reinstate".

I took my paperwork with me to court and everything was dismissed, but I still had to pay the $20 reinstatement fee.

Reinstatement is a joke as well. There was (at the time) ONE office in all of southwestern Ohio that took care of that, and they were open 4 days a week during business hours only.

The Elmwood situation was because of "account closing fees" on my child support. There were $250 in fees on my paid off child support account, and because they had not been paid in 6 months (I didn't even know about them, they were due to an automated fee being applied erroneously to my child support account for a year after my daughter turned 18, because of paperwork my ex didn't submit) my license was revoked.

I was living in Kentucky at the time so I was not notified of the revocation. I settled with the state, but didn't know that, once again, my license went from revoked status to "failure to reinstate".

That was in October. I just got the ticket settled in Elmwood on Valentines Day. Cost me over $300.

Neither time did I actually break any laws when I was pulled over, just state paperwork madness.

Ohio seems to REALLY like that new $20 reinstatement fee, so they will revoke your license for just about anything these days, and it is YOUR responsibility to fix it, not theirs.

/On the first ticket, I was looking at the possibility of 6mos in jail and a $5000 fine. Thank GOD I still had my paperwork from when I paid the ticket.

In Germany they need both the license plate and a picture of the driver to give an automated ticket. The computer automatically blurs out the passengers as a privacy matter. Some genius has a British Audi in Germany and thus the driver gets blurred out instead of the passenger. So the German police got a bunch of picture like the following:

I vowed to stay the Hell out of Arizona until they got those damn speed cameras off their highways. They wouldn't have pissed me off so much if they were used legitimately but there were constant 10mph speed cuts out in the middle of nowhere with cameras set up to catch people who weren't expecting a reduced speed limit in the middle of the friggin' desert. I set the cruise control for the posted limit and adjusted every time I saw a sign but I was still shocked when I got home and didn't receive a single citation in the mail. Somehow, in the thousand+ miles of driving around AZ, I managed to see every single speed trap and slow down in time.

While the state eventually removed most of the cameras, there are still around half a dozen cities that use them within the city limits.

My wife had one rescinded in New Mexico because the judge lives opposite where the speed trap car was set that day and could see from his window that the construction speed limit sign had blown down because of the wind. Then, they day after the court case, the police just happened to have a cop car sitting outside my driveway and ticket me for not signalling when reversing out of my driveway. I went to court and got that chucked too.

My biggest problem with red light cameras and speed cameras is that an outside corporation is getting a commission from all the tickets. There has already been a great deal of evidence pointing to the sad fact that red light cameras have been calibrated to ticket drivers that were not in any danger of running red lights. I personally feel that all speed and red light cameras should be taken down and we return to the days where only cops, not machines, could give you tickets.

My biggest problem with things like traffic lights, speed limits that are seen as absolute limits (like in school zones), and even having to stop for a school bus when it's loading or unloading is that those things are designed to remove complete trust in the driver to make the right choice. For example, I come to a traffic light at a four way intersection. It's 10:35 am on a Wednesday. Most people are at work or in school. I can see in a straight line in both directions. The light is red. Now, if I can tell that there are no cars in sight, I as the driver should have the right to say "fark this red light, no one is coming." and drive on through. However, the law says that I am not able to make that decision and if a camera is on that traffic light, then I am to be fined and the reasoning of "No one was coming." isn't allowed.

Same with school buses. Where I live there are two apartment complexes side by side. Across the street is an empty field. More than once I have been caught behind two school buses. The first will stop, pick up kids. Once it's done, the second school bus will drive up 15 feet to where the first one was, and pick up kids. So I'm stuck behind two school buses picking up kids and I can't drive around them, even though all the kids being picked up live in the apartment complex on the side of the road with the school bus and with the other side of the road being an empty field, no kids are going to come running out of that field and across the street. But, still, as the driver of a car, I am forbidden from using logic to determine that no kids are in danger if I drive around those two school buses. And let's look at the school zones. Where I live the school zones activate an hour before school lets out and lasts up to an hour after school lets out. Now, as a driver I should be able to say "School let's out a 3:30, it's 2:59, no kids are in danger." and continue at the non-school zone speed. However, the law is written to prevent me from allowing to make that choice. Instead if I do that I get a rather large ticket for running a school zone.

I would love to see the lawmakers review our traffic code and put some of the trust back to the drivers instead of a blanket "You must do this all the time no matter what" approach, which is what we have now. And making automated ticketing machines illegal would be a good step to that trust.

DON.MAC:Shadow Blasko: 30 seconds and a gas powered angle grinder, but (and get this) these units allegedly have vibration detectors which start video and audio recording (transmitted wirelessly), and send out a distress call if the levels are breached.

The ones here have smoke detectors and heat detectors. Some of the ones in the UK now stream a video feed of the other cameras back someplace else because they get broken so often.

If you don't like speed cameras, remind your local homeless population that there are often $6,000 cameras in them.

So, shut the f*ck up, say you did it, give us money faster and you get a discount because f*ck "traffic safety" and laws and actual, useful court proceedings. Why don't they just put up a f*cking tool booth at random with a gate and a basket to throw the money in while a dog sniffs your trunk?

On a somewhat related note, this happened to someone I work with: He got pulled over by some hick local PD with a belly too large and a brain to small, and the cop issued the ticket based on his laser tag version of radar enforcement... Problem is that the cop didn't have the state requirement of "laser marksmanship" for issuing tickets associated with a laser instrument, and when the guy asked for his (the cop) laser marksmanship certification number (about a $1k fee for the city) on the ticket... Well, lets just say the cop snatched back the ticket and told my co-worker to GTFOutta here... lol